Tesla braces for its first trial involving Autopilot fatality::Tesla Inc is set to defend itself for the first time at trial against allegations that failure of its Autopilot driver assistant feature led to death, in what will likely be a major test of Chief Executive Elon Musk’s assertions about the technology.

  • T156@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Isn’t it a glorified cruise control/lane guidance system, rather than an actual automated driving system? So it would be about as safe as those are, rather than being something that you can just leave along to handle its own business, like a robotic vacuum cleaner.

    • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The main issue is that they market it like a fully autonomous system, and made it just good enough that it lulls people into a false sense of security that they don’t need to pay attention, while also having no way to verify they are, unlike other systems from BMW, GM, or Ford.

      Other systems have their capabilities intentionally hampered to insure that you’re not going to feel it’s okay to hop in the passenger seat and let your dog drive.

      They are hands-on driver assists, and so they are generally calibrated in a way that they’ll guide you in the lane, but will drift/sway just a bit if you completely take your hands off the wheel, which is intended to keep you, y’know, actually driving.

      Tesla didn’t want to do that. They wanted to be the “best” system, with zero safety considerations at any step other than what was basically forced upon them by the supplier so they wouldn’t completely back out. The company is so insanely reckless that I feel shame for ever wanting to work for them at one point, until I saw and heard many stories about just how bad they were.

      I got to experience it firsthand too working at a supplier, where production numbers were prioritized over key safety equipment, and while everyone else was willing to suck it up for a couple of bad quarters, they pushed it and I’m sure it’s indirectly resulted in further injuries and potentially deaths because of it.

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        hey wanted to be the “best” system, with zero safety considerations at any step other than what was basically forced upon them by the supplier so they wouldn’t completely back out. The company is so insanely reckless that I feel shame for ever wanting to work for them at one point

        What does this remind me of… Oh yeah right, OceanGate

      • RojoSanIchiban@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is an absolutely bald-faced lie. Tesla absolutely does NOT market Autopilot as fully autonomous system. Autopilot is nothing other than lane-centering and adaptive cruise control with emergency braking, and that’s it. There is zero ambiguity about it on the vehicle and in documentation. Plus, it specifically requires the driver to maintain control of the wheel.

        You need to stop, drop, and roll or jump in the nearest pool before your pants burn you to a crisp.

        • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Oh really? Is that why for years now, on the front page for Autopilot on Tesla’s site, was the infamous “Paint it Black” demo, where in the first 10 seconds it says “The driver only there for legal reasons, the car is driving itself”? What do you think is going to stick in the mind of a potential buyer: that video of the car “driving itself” right on the Tesla website, or the generic 5 line page that you’ll see in basically every single car with a satnav these days saying, “Please operate the car safely”?

          Regardless of how much people like you love to get into the technicalities and differences between Autopilot and Full Self Driving and chime in with “ACKSHUALLY” and insert any number of the same tired responses about how autopilot works on aircraft or what it says in the documentation, it changes nothing about how they’ve shaped the public perception of their system and how people are going to attempt and use it.

          Stop defending their shitty practices. Literally everyone else has figured out how to prevent people from abusing these systems, Tesla won’t even bother, because people like you will step in and defend it every time for some fucking reason, and as a bonus it saves them money.

        • themajesticdodo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Autopilot is nothing other than lane-centering and adaptive cruise control with emergency braking, and that’s it.

          When you put it that way, the term Autopilot does sound really misleading.

        • MataVatnik@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In have this product named Telephone. I absolutely do NOT market Telephone as a remote long distance voice chat system. Telephone is nothing other than a voice-recording and adaptive voice control with emergency saving features, and that’s it.

        • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          They literally named it “autopilot”. Give me a break. You have zero business calling other people dishonest.

        • joel_feila@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Well there have people accusing Tesla of advertising their cars as much more self driving then they are. Specifically Teals has been accused of false advertising because it is what you describe, but they sell it as a self driving car.

    • fat_stig@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It is just a shit load of if then else statements. If the inputs don’t have a corresponding if then it just defaults to doing nothing.